Newsletter No.390
16th January 2014

My Favourite Tipples - Features Blog - Subscription - About

Collaborate with Peers in FreePint's Communities of Practice

This week marks the first of FreePint's in-person Community of Practice (CoP) sessions, held in London. More than 15 information managers from banks, consultancies, engineering firms, law firms and pharma companies joined us to dig into the new opportunities and risks associated with changing approaches to delivering news awareness in their organisations.

Both two-hour sessions featured spirited discussion of current and emerging issues with aggregated platforms and vendors, as well as the opportunities afforded by new technologies, alternative vendors and getting closer to user requirements for news provision.

"This was incredibly useful," was the most comment shared when participants left their sessions. "Hear, hear," say I as the Director of Research!

We still have space in sessions scheduled for New York City (28 January), Chicago (10 and 11 February) and Minneapolis (24 February). Read more about the sessions and register for a place. Participation is at no cost for customers with a FreePint Subscription at the Team level and higher, and we make a small number of seats available in each session for qualified participants who are considering a subscription.

CoP Calls Coming

When an in-person session isn't nearby or convenient, we have a monthly CoP call as well. I'm pleased to welcome Chris Broekhoff, president of licensing consultancy MEI Global LLC, to present during CoP calls in January. Chris will help you understand the ins and outs of content licensing - how those critical sources get added to and removed from your favourite aggregators.

Read more about this compelling topic; register to be considered for one of the few remaining seats in these calls on the 23rd and 27th of the month. NB: Seats are nearly all taken as of this publication date; we are making an effort to add a third session.

Latest Reviews

Since the last issue of the FreePint Newsletter, we've published a number of reviews, including:

• Eikon, from Thomson Reuters
• Passport, from Euromonitor
• Manzama, a relatively new tool for business analysis and competitive intelligence.

Together, they represent the range we aim for: flagship products from major vendors; thoughtful offerings from niche publishers; innovative options from newcomers. Stay informed about newly published reviews when you monitor the "product reviews" category of our content.

Upcoming Topic Series: The Social Enterprise

The next FreePint Topic Series is set to launch near the end of January. Co-produced by James Mullan and Shimrit Janes, The Social Enterprise promises to provide a banner crop of practical tips on making the best use of existing tools for collaboration and connection, selecting different tools, and contributing to or leading an internal culture of collaboration to fulfill business objectives. Read Shimrit's introductory article to find out more.

Register your interest in the FreePint Topic Series: The Social Enterprise for notification of new content published in the series, to get early announcements to register for FreePint Webinars produced in the series, and to receive a free copy of the FreePint Report: Buyer's Guide on Social Tools, scheduled for publication in February.

Happy New Year

There seem to be signs of economic recovery everywhere. How about by you? Happy New Year to all of us - let's make 2014 a great one.

Robin Neidorf
Director of Research, FreePint
robin.neidorf@freepint.com

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My Favourite Tipples

By Adam Pope

I help meet the online needs of 80 Communities of Practice at Arup, the engineering consultancy. They bring some of the best minds in engineering together to learn. They facilitate long-lasting friendships that bring value to Arup.

And their online requirements are diverse - with mobile engineering calculation tools, collaborative document libraries, and rich conversation facilities, we heavily invest in and support our communities of practice. In order to meet their needs over the years we have built a vast array of online tools to help them learn, win, and do work.

Whenever I get a new requirement I tend to figure out the best way of meeting it by searching online; and I frequently come across the following sites that provide great content, so some New Year tipples for you.

• FeverBee: A never-ending source of enlightened, research-backed online community building guidance from Richard Millington and his team. I find the articles concise, well written, and practical.
  
  
• Intranet Articles: Comprehensive aggregation of intranet articles well worth searching throughout to gain insights on anything intranet-related.
  
  
• A List Apart: Cutting edge design advice for CSS developers. Whenever I'm applying a design to a webpage or site, I often find the best-practice standards compliant code this site makes available invaluable to creating a delightful experience for our staff here.
  
  
• The Real Story Group: Independent web application reviews from Tony Byrne. If we have a need for a new application, we subscribe and refer to the reviews on this site to guide us to the best in class products available.
  
  
• Harold Jarche: Insightful commentary on the future of learning and working, Harold has a strong vision about the learning workplace and how to put that into effect. I find it reinforces my own points of view with some great arguments.
  
  
• A FreePint Subscriber article I recently found useful was Communities of Practice - Acting as a Trusted Adviser as it contained loads of great links to helpful resources I'd not seen before. Even better, it was on FreePint.

Read online »

Would you like to submit your Favourite Tipples suggestions to the FreePint Newsletter?

Features Blog

The Features Blog offers the latest commentary on trends, issues and opportunities in the information world, as well as examples of how organisations use FreePint resources to raise the value of information.

Selection of the latest Features Blog items:

• Personalised Insight & Intelligence from Manzama
• Ins and Outs of Content Licensing: Updates and Insights
• My Favourite Tipples Now Searchable
• Finding Solutions to Key Issues at the AKISS Conference
• Euromonitor Passport: Industry Insights and Cross-Comparable Country Data
• FreePint Newsletter Refresh
• Eikon Answers: Impressive Search Results Instantly
• Survey on News and Beyond Aggregation
• My Favourite Tipples from a Global Law Firm Research Specialist

  Visit the Features Blog »
   Subscribe to the RSS Feed »

FreePint Subscription

Articles and reports included in a FreePint Subscription provide customer organisations with practical insight on four FreePint Topics:
Sources, Technology, ROI and Compliance.

Subscribers can click any link to login and view the full item. 

Recent FreePint Subscription articles and reports:

• Product Review of Arachnys: Sources, Content & Coverage
  By Chris Porter on Tuesday, 14th January 2014
  In-depth information on emerging markets and extensive local-language information sources have created a database of over 16,000 sources in compliance & risk tool Arachnys, finds Chris Porter in the second part of his review. Content ranges from news sources and corporate data to government and litigation information, sanctions lists, social media and trade directories. Country libraries for 217 nations are available as well as international sources including the BBC and Bloomberg. »
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Company sources - Compliance tools - People sources - Regional sources
  
  
• Product Review of Westlaw Practitioner Insights: Outputs, Pricing, Help & Contact Details
  By John DiGilio on Monday, 13th January 2014
  The final part of John DiGilio's review of Westlaw Practitioner Insights discusses how the introduction of cloud-based folders for outputs and delivery of results offers cost and time savings through ease of access and greater sharing both internally and externally. Customer service, pricing and areas for improvement are also covered along with the company's plans for enhancements to the product which aims to offer information and analysis on legal practice areas from antitrust to health law and intellectual property. »
  Posted in: Knowledge management - Information purchasing - Legal sources - News sources
  
  
• Product Review of Arachnys: Introduction, Value & FreePint's View
  By Chris Porter on Monday, 13th January 2014
  Business data in emerging markets is the focus of compliance tool Arachnys. In the first part of his review, Chris Porter finds out how it addresses a gap in the market for high quality data on high risk markets. A focused source collection and extensive multilingual capabilities combine to provide a specialist service for Anti-Money Laundering, Know Your Customer, Enhanced Due Diligence and Anti-Bribery and Corruption checks. »
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Company sources - Compliance tools - People sources - Regional sources
  
  
• Could an Enterprise Social Network Make Us Happier?
  By James Mullan on Friday, 10th January 2014
  Most people I know are content, however how would you feel if you could feel even happier than you currently do? You'd probably jump at the chance. Well a recent article reports on how employees at LexisNexis are much "happier". The cause of this happiness, their use of the enterprise social network Yammer. So the question is, can using an enterprise social network really make us all happier? »
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Intranets
  
  
• Product Review of Westlaw Practitioner Insights: User Interface & Search Options
  By John DiGilio on Friday, 10th January 2014
  Westlaw Practitioner Insights' user interface and search options are put to the test in the third part of John DiGilio's review. The pages offer the best content WestlawNext has to offer in the user's chosen practice area, with current awareness in the form of analysis, alerts, legal filings, news from Reuters and more accessible in an intuitive way. »
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Legal sources - News sources
  
  
• Cyber Security in the Enterprise
  By Sophie Alexander on Thursday, 9th January 2014
  Sophie Alexander looks at some of the issues surrounding cyber security within organisations as well as recent government initiatives designed to protect them. Surveys from the Federation of Small Businesses, EY and PwC illustrate the growing threat from security breaches and the associated costs of cybercrime and impact on economic performance. »
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Information strategy - Regulatory compliance - Mobile
  
  
• Product Review of Westlaw Practitioner Insights: Sources & Coverage
  By John DiGilio on Wednesday, 8th January 2014
  The second part of John DiGilio's review of Westlaw Practitioner Insights looks at the sources and coverage in this legal information database which offers practice-specific information from a range of sources including the WestlawNext database and sources such as Reuters Legal, CQ Roll Call and Wolters Kluwer. John highlights Westlaw Daily Briefings as a particularly interesting feature, offering full context and analysis on developments in practice areas. »
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Legal sources - News sources
  
  
• Email and Yammer: a Match Made in Microsoft?
  By James Mullan on Wednesday, 8th January 2014
  Microsoft's acquisition of Yammer in 2012 has been oft-discussed. Since then there have been a number of developments which have improved both the integration of Yammer within SharePoint and the functionality available within Yammer. The latest of these developments was announced just before Christmas and makes Yammer available to individuals who aren't registered users and introduces mobile messaging. But what are the benefits of this new functionality for organisations and individuals? »
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Knowledge management - Intranets
  
  
• Product Review of Westlaw Practitioner Insights: Introduction, Audience, Value & FreePint's View
  By John DiGilio on Wednesday, 8th January 2014
  The debut of WestlawNext was a radical and, for most users, welcome departure from the old days of database-driven legal research. The ability to run one search across all content sets and for a set price was an idea whose time was hastened by clients eager to tighten purse strings and control costs. Too much of a good thing can have its disadvantages, however. Practitioners using the new platform waxed nostalgic over their former ability to create content-focused sets of resources specific to their areas of practice. Westlaw's new Practitioner Insights pages are designed to recapture that powerful feature of the old platform while enhancing it with modern advances in curation and customised alerting that attorneys need to gain competitive advantage in today's legal market. »
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Legal sources - News sources
  
  
• Source Update January 2014: What's Happening with Factiva?
  By Anne Jordan on Tuesday, 7th January 2014
  This month's additions and takedowns in Factiva, researched and compiled by Anne Jordan. »
  Posted in: News sources - Regional sources
  
  
• The Internet of Things (IoT) in the Enterprise
  By Sophie Alexander on Monday, 6th January 2014
  There has been a lot of speculation and hype surrounding the Internet of Things (IoT) over the past few years but to date the ability to use the internet for monitoring and connecting everyday objects has mostly been used for operational efficiencies within the enterprise. However, a recent Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report highlights the long term potential benefits of this technology. Sophie Alexander explores some of the obstacles that will need to be overcome before IoT can operate successfully across businesses. »
  Posted in: Information strategy - Mobile
  
  
• Mini Review: Manzama
  By James Mullan on Monday, 6th January 2014
  Competitive and business intelligence requires information from multiple sources, both traditional and new, along with ways to filter and make it into decision-ready information. James Mullan's Mini Review of Manzama examines how the tool performs for its legal and professional services clients and how it can help them to gain a better understanding of their competitors, clients and industry and to better identify business development opportunities.  »
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Company sources - Competitive intelligence - Industry sources - News sources - Social media sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Large Software Vendors Bet on BYOD
  By Sophie Alexander on Friday, 3rd January 2014
  The subject of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) continues to make headlines and despite the security issues this presents, less than a third of businesses in Europe have a formal BYOD policy. Given recent acquisitions by IBM and Oracle in the enterprise mobile management market, maybe it's now time for companies to review their BYOD policies as the use of mobile devices in the workplace continues to gather momentum. »
  Posted in: Information strategy - Regulatory compliance - Mobile
  
  
• How Do You Solve a Problem Like CVs?
  By Sarah Dillingham on Thursday, 2nd January 2014
  CVs, resumes and skill sets are an essential part of new business proposals, particularly for professional services organisations such as legal firms, consultancies and accountants. How best to manage the CVs is a challenge for knowledge and information professionals who have to facilitate fast access to the information, ensure the documents are accurate, can be easily shared and that the formatting allows easy output, copying and sharing. »
  Posted in: Knowledge management - Intranets - People sources
  
  
• 2014 - Reasons to be Cheerful?
  By Tim Buckley Owen on Thursday, 2nd January 2014
  Businesses still have a long way to go before they can be sure they're exploiting all their available data effectively, suggest recent comments from the Business Information Industry Association and the European School of Management & Technology. But do the exciting developments in big data, business intelligence, analytics and regulatory compliance predicted by analysts such as Gartner and Ovum necessarily have to be information technology led? Perhaps not; some of the skills involved include procurement of increasingly commoditised services and exercising judgement over trends highlighted by the data. And The Economist predicts a growing role for a chief digital officer, charged with embedding technology into products and business models. »
  Posted in: Knowledge management - Information purchasing - Regulatory compliance
  
  
• Lost in Translation - Online Tools for Foreign Language Research
  By Sophie Alexander on Tuesday, 31st December 2013
  With the globalisation of information via the internet and English rapidly losing its place as the predominant online language as Chinese, Japanese and Spanish content grows, Sophie Alexander explores the increased popularity of online translation tools. She highlights some useful features of a few of these. Social media site Facebook recently acquired a translation tool and search engines such as Bing and Google have quite well developed software. However, Sophie suggests researchers also consider more specialist tools such as Linguee, Systransoft and 2lingual.  »
  Posted in: News sources - Regional sources - Search
  
  
• Big Data - Help or Hindrance?
  By Tim Buckley Owen on Tuesday, 31st December 2013
  Apple's recent acquisition of the Twitter analytics firm Topsy, a series of enthusiastic articles by Pinsent Masons on the health and pharmaceutical benefits of data analytics, a report from Forbes Insights on big data's marketing potential, and Google's attempts to interest small businesses in analytics, all suggest that big data may be at the top of its hype cycle. But recent FreePint comment indicates that its impact on knowledge management has been limited so far, and evidence from Thomson Reuters suggests that big data may even be hampering companies' efforts to find the figures they need to comply with tax regulations. »
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Information services management - Knowledge management
  
  
• Knowledge Management in Law Firms is Changing!
  By James Mullan on Monday, 30th December 2013
  James Mullan looks at what the future holds for knowledge management in legal firms. He discusses how KM is now going beyond the "traditional" into new territories such as using KM principles to manage a firm's risk and compliance processes. Tips for making knowledge projects more likely to complete successfully are also covered. »
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Knowledge management
  
  
• FreePint Report: Information Services Management Monthly Update (December 2013)
  This monthly update collects the current content relevant to those responsible for information service management, information strategy and content procurement in a convenient PDF package for download and offline reading. Includes: Product Review of InfoNgen: Executive Summary A discovery ... »
  Posted in: Information services management - Information strategy - Information purchasing - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Getting the Most Out Of Expert Directories & Staff Profiles
  By Sarah Dillingham on Friday, 27th December 2013
  Sarah Dillingham asks how you can maximise the usage and usefulness of your organisation's staff or expert directory. She examines how companies can ensure their people data is current and how they can best manage information across multiple sources, from Active Directory to Outlook, intranets such as SharePoint, internal social media like Yammer and external social media sites including LinkedIn. »
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Intranets - People sources
  
  
• Intranets: Don't Write the Obituary Just Yet
  By James Mullan on Tuesday, 24th December 2013
  It seems that a day doesn't go by without yet another website or blog trumpeting the death of intranets, or that intranets are becoming obsolete. The question is whether intranet managers should be up in arms about these posts, or is there some truth behind them? James Mullan explores the evolution of intranets, social enterprise networks, CMS and collaborative systems. »
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Intranets
  
  
• Privacy vs Freedom - It's Going to Get Harder
  By Tim Buckley Owen on Tuesday, 24th December 2013
  A whole range of recent actions by data protection authorities across the European Union show how seriously regulators continue to take privacy. Issues range over Dutch comment on the validity of online privacy policies, the need to train temporary staff in data protection and the possibility of stiffer United Kingdom penalties for breaches. But there are also conflicts - between economic freedom and unjustified surveillance, prevention of cybercrime and excessive intrusiveness, tougher privacy rules and legitimate journalism. As a new report from Outsell suggests, it's not necessarily going to be easy to work out what proposals will become law and what the best options for compliance might be. »
  Posted in: Regulatory compliance
  
  
• Eikon: Hitting the Headlines for all the Right Reasons
  By Andrew Grave on Monday, 23rd December 2013
  Andrew Grave examines the transformation of Eikon from a product with disappointing sales into a solid competitor to Bloomberg with over 100,000 installed terminals. The desktop market data solution for financial professionals now offers a wealth of content, secure messaging and powerful mobile apps.  »
  Posted in: Financial sources - News sources
  
  
• Product Review of Euromonitor Passport: Executive Summary
  By Sophie Alexander on Friday, 20th December 2013
  Whether you're looking for an overview of an industry or country or need more detailed analysis, Euromonitor's Passport offers a wealth of data on consumer-based market research. Providing statistics and analysis on 28 industries and with over 1,000 analysts covering 210 countries, Sophie Alexander's executive summary of Passport shows how it could be of value to any company that needs consumer market research data. »
  Posted in: Company sources - Competitive intelligence - Market sources - Regional sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Compliance - Cautionary Tales To Help Your Budget
  By Tim Buckley Owen on Friday, 20th December 2013
  FreePint's Topic Series: Compliance in Context has drawn attention to an enormous range of useful sources and tools, but persuading enterprises to provide the budget to acquire them may still prove challenging. Some cautionary tales may help information managers demonstrate their value. Britain's new register of beneficial company ownership, criticism by the Financial Conduct Authority of weaknesses in financial firms' Anti-Money Laundering, bribery and corruption procedures, and the more proactive approach now taken by Britain's Revenue & Customs are among the developments covered. Governments' greater inclination to regulate to please voters, and banks' willingness to pay huge fines rather than fight the regulators, may also make spending on a few more compliance tools seem a bargain by comparison. »
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Regulatory compliance - Compliance tools
  
  
• Merger Mania in Biopharma: Will Information Professionals be Victims, Witnesses or Winners?
  By Yulia Aspinall on Friday, 20th December 2013
  With biopharmaceutical companies under pressure to maintain revenues and suffering from the upcoming expiry of key patents, more mergers and acquisitions are likely to take place. Yulia Aspinall examines how information professionals can put their skills to good use to change the challenge of possible redundancy into an opportunity, where the information services team emerges stronger post M&A. »
  Posted in: Information services management - Scientific, technical, medical sources - Training
  
  
• Product Review of Euromonitor Passport: Outputs, Pricing, Help & Contact Details
  By Sophie Alexander on Friday, 20th December 2013
  Examining Euromonitor Passport's output options, help and pricing, Sophie Alexander finds that the help options have improved significantly since FreePint's 2011 review with a number of videos now available in seven languages, covering aspects such as manipulating statistics and creating custom datasets. Help is also available from every screen and covers areas such as methodology, which includes a detailed description of how the global market research database specialist obtains its data. »
  Posted in: Competitive intelligence - Market sources - Regional sources
  
  
• FreePint Report: Product Review of Euromonitor Passport
  Euromonitor Passport is an online market research tool which focuses on statistics and analysis in relation to consumer-based products. Sophie Alexander's review finds its global industry sector coverage very comprehensive and its resources extensive, encompassing official sources complemented by the ... »
  Posted in: Company sources - Competitive intelligence - Market sources - Regional sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Securing Senior Management Buy-In
  By Catherine Dhanjal on Thursday, 19th December 2013
  The recent ASLIB AKISS conference gave delegates the opportunity to share ideas with peers and hear from speakers their views on the best way to secure management buy-in for projects both small and large. Richard Newton introduced a valuable three-step process to identify what you want supported, who you want to support you and how you plan to get the support you want. The SLA's president-elect, Kate Arnold, highlighted survey findings from the SLA-FT research into the evolving value of information management. She discussed how the results show that library staff must become client-centric decision enablers who are able to communicate, understand the business and present well. »
  Posted in: Information services management - Training
  
  
• Product Review of Euromonitor Passport: Search
  By Sophie Alexander on Thursday, 19th December 2013
  The third part of Sophie Alexander's review of Euromonitor Passport examines the extensive search options available. The Passport database contains statistics, analysis, surveys and news on 27 industry sectors covering 210 countries. Sophie finds that the quality and quantity of information available is very impressive and irrespective of your chosen category or which page you're on, the layout is reassuringly similar with search filters along the left of the page, usually with the option to change the geography, currency, date and categories. There is the possibility of going deep into the data or choosing overviews complete with visualisations. »
  Posted in: Competitive intelligence - Market sources - Regional sources - Search
  
  
• FreePint Report: Product Review of Thomson Reuters Eikon
  Eikon from Thomson Reuters offers some particularly impressive features, finds reviewer Andrew Grave, highlighting that Eikon's mobile applications stand out in a market not known for business applications. Eikon Messenger is a notable plus, enabling secure messaging not only with Eikon users but eig ... »
  Posted in: Financial sources - Market sources - Mobile - News sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Arup: Engineering a Worldwide Community of Practice
  By Catherine Dhanjal on Wednesday, 18th December 2013
  Arup's worldwide Communities of Practice enable its staff across 92 offices to share expertise openly internally to solve problems or share ideas, finds Catherine Dhanjal at the recent ASLIB Knowledge and Information Strategy Summit (AKISS). The CoPs, known as Networks in Arup, allow staff to look beyond the constraints of their own specialisms. Since it was founded in 1946, Arup has chosen staff not only for their professional competence but for their emotional intelligence and their willingness to engage in a community-based approach to problem solving, creating a virtuous circle which helps to improve skills and win new pieces of work. »
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Information services management - Intranets
  
  
• Product Review of Eikon: Executive Summary
  By Andrew Grave on Tuesday, 17th December 2013
  Thomson Reuters Eikon is the company's key desktop offering for financial markets professionals including those currently using Bloomberg. It offers global market data, news and analysis across financial markets for traders and other users and succeeds both Thomson ONE and Reuters 3000 Xtra. Eikon Answers offers a simple way to retrieve and analyse market data and Messenger offers secure messaging not just with Eikon users but also eight investment banks, two of Eikon's most powerful features, finds reviewer Andrew Grave. »
  Posted in: Financial sources - Market sources - Mobile - News sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews

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